Euthanasia for babies

An article in today's New York Times says, "[d]utch doctors have proposed a procedure for infant mercy killing.  Is this humane or barbaric?"  Here's more:

One sure way to start a lively argument at a dinner party is to raise the question Are we humans getting more decent over time?  Optimists about moral progress will point out that the last few centuries have seen, in the West at least, such welcome developments as the abolition of slavery and of legal segregation, the expansion of freedoms (of religion, speech and press), better treatment of women and a gradual reduction of violence, notably murder, in everyday life. Pessimists will respond by citing the epic evils of the 20th century -- the Holocaust, the Gulag. Depending on their religious convictions, some may call attention to the breakdown of the family and a supposed decline in sexual morality. Others will complain of backsliding in areas where moral progress had seemingly been secured, like the killing of civilians in war, the reintroduction of the death penalty or the use of torture. And it is quite possible, if your dinner guests are especially well informed, that someone will bring up infanticide. . . .

Our sense of what constitutes moral progress is a matter partly of reason and partly of sentiment. On the reason side, the Groningen protocol may seem progressive because it refuses to countenance the prolonging of an infant's suffering merely to satisfy a dubious distinction between ''killing'' and ''letting nature take its course.'' It insists on unflinching honesty about a practice that is often shrouded in casuistry in the United States. Moral sentiments, though, have an inertia that sometimes resists the force of moral reasons. Just quote Verhagen's description of the medically induced infant deaths over which he has presided -- ''it's beautiful in a way. . . . It is after they die that you see them relaxed for the first time'' -- and even the most spirited dinner-table debate over moral progress will, for a moment, fall silent.

The author's premise -- i.e., that recoiling from the Groningen protocal, or from the notion that a purported desire to "relieve suffering" excuses or justifies intentional, direct killing of human beings, reflects "moral sentiment", not "moral reasons" -- is, it seems to me, entirely (yet typically) incorrect.

Rick